A self-billed statement with a column of small numbers
The merchant's statement arrives. It lists the loads you delivered in the month, each with a ticket number, a net weight, and a string of intake results: moisture, specific weight, admix, protein, Hagberg if it is milling wheat. Next to them sits a column of deductions or adjustments, some small, some less so, and a total at the bottom that becomes a payment.
You check the total against what you expected, give or take, and move on. Checking each load properly means finding the contract terms for moisture and admix deductions, the spec for premiums and penalties, and working out what each load should have been paid.
Why deductions are rarely checked
Each deduction is small enough to seem not worth chasing, and the calculation behind it depends on terms that sit in a different document.
| Deduction or adjustment | What it depends on | Where that lives |
|---|---|---|
| Moisture | Contract base moisture and the deduction scale | Contract terms or trade rules |
| Admix | Contract admix allowance and the deduction rate | Contract terms |
| Specific weight | Spec band and any penalty | Contract spec |
| Protein or other premiums | Premium or penalty scale for the grade | Contract note, often a separate schedule |
| Drying or handling charges | Whether agreed and at what rate | Merchant's terms |
Different merchants use different forms of each rule, and different contracts with the same merchant can use different terms. The intake result itself comes from the buyer's sample, and whether that result is right is a separate question from whether the deduction was calculated correctly from it.
What goes unnoticed without checking
Most statements are correct. That is exactly why checking them by hand feels like a waste of time, and why an error on one load in a busy month can slip through. A deduction scale applied from the wrong contract, a drying charge on grain delivered dry, or a premium missed on a load that met spec are all ordinary mistakes for any business processing many loads.
There is also information lost. Load by load intake results tell you which bins and fields produced grain that met spec, and which did not. That is useful for your own storage and marketing, and it is sitting in a statement nobody reads line by line.
How we build a statement checker for grain
What we build is a checker that recalculates each load from the terms you agreed and shows you the differences.
- For each contract, the relevant terms are recorded once: base spec, deduction scales, premiums, penalties and charges, taken from the contract note and the terms it refers to. You confirm them.
- Statements and intake result sheets are forwarded by email or downloaded from the merchant's portal and read automatically, load by load.
- Each load is matched to its contract (from the ledger of contracts, if you have one) and its intake results are run through that contract's terms.
- Where the statement deduction differs from the recalculated one, or a charge appears that the terms do not mention, the load goes on a short exceptions list with the working shown.
- Loads where the intake result looks unusual for that bin, compared with your own samples if you take them, are highlighted so you can decide whether to ask about the sample.
- Results are stored against each load and bin, giving you a season's quality picture per crop and store.
We do not interpret trade rules or contracts for you. If a term is ambiguous, the checker shows the load as needing a person's judgement, not as an error.
A statement checked before the payment lands
The monthly statement arrives by email. By the time you open it, eleven loads have been recalculated. Ten match. One has a drying charge on a load delivered well below the base moisture on the intake result. You forward the working to the merchant's accounts team with the ticket number and the contract reference, which takes a few minutes rather than an evening.
At the end of the season you can see which bins produced loads with deductions, and bring that to your planning conversations.
Signs your grain deductions go unchecked
- You check the statement total but not each load.
- Contract deduction terms are in a different document from the statement.
- Different contracts with the same merchant have different scales.
- You rarely look at intake results once the grain is paid for.
- You have wondered about a charge but did not have time to work it out.